October 03, 2012 11:13 PM CDTOctober 03, 2012 11:13 PM CDTCowlishaw: After five months of work unravels in Oakland, Rangers have one night to make it right

Cowlishaw: After five months of work unravels in Oakland, Rangers have one night to make it right

2/24

Tom Fox/Staff Photographer

Texas Rangers fans Chris Horton of Plano, left, and Jamie Nanez of Plano, right, can't believe Josh Hamilton dropped the final out in the fourth inning during a watch party at Scruffy Duffies, Wednesday, October 3, 2012. The error allowed the A's to score two go ahead runs. The Rangers face the Oakland A's in the final game of the season to decide the AL West Champion.

Based on this franchise’s 40-year history in Arlington, that’s an
accomplishment under any circumstances. But the manner in which it was
“achieved” represents a frightening collapse for what had, until very recently,
appeared to be the most dependable of local professional teams.

Once this thing started to unravel over the weekend against the Angels, you
could see where it might be headed in Oakland against a team that is so much
more remarkable in its construction and determination than anything that
precipitated “Moneyball.”

With Ryan Dempster taking the mound for Texas, you knew it might get ugly
early — he has been awful against good teams since his arrival from a very bad
one in Chicago — and it did. But, really, who saw the A’s scoring 11 unanswered
runs for a 12-5 division-clinching victory?

Who thought the losing pitcher would be Derek Holland, a guy who threw 113
pitches just three days ago and is rarely used in relief but was first out of
the bullpen Wednesday?

And who imagined Josh Hamilton dropping the most routine of fly balls for the
go-ahead runs, leading to a dugout confrontation with manager Ron Washington
that had echoes of Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson in the worst of times?

It’s almost impossible to quantify the magnitude of this Rangers collapse
because it’s unlike anything we have seen. I mean that literally, because the
addition of the second wild-card team in each league changed the dynamic for
everyone, but the Rangers and A’s were the first to face this unique brand of
baseball pressure.

This wasn’t win-or-go-home. It wasn’t that level of desperation, so you don’t
talk about ’64 Phillies or any other late-season chokers who missed the
postseason party.

But it also wasn’t what we have witnessed in the past, the kind of shrug
teams offer when assigned wild-card status since it provided no real challenges
beyond those faced by division winners.

This was win-or-go-to-the-playoffs-anyway-but-under-considerable-duress. With
10 hyphens in play in that last sentence, I told you this was different.

And so the A’s never blinked after falling behind 5-1 in the third inning.
Their tale of five rookie starting pitchers, castoffs in key spots like closer
and clean-up hitter needs to continue to be told, and it will be as Oakland goes
on to face Detroit in a division series. The A stands for Amazing like nothing
Billy Beane ever attempted to create a decade ago.

The Rangers, meanwhile, face the danger of perhaps not even getting to play a
round.

Catching a break Wednesday night when the recently eliminated Tampa Bay Rays
beat Baltimore, the Rangers will host the Orioles on Friday night at Rangers
Ballpark in Arlington. And this is winner take all. Beat that team that has been
so beatable over the years — not so much for everyone in 2012, however — and the
Rangers can move on to play a best-of-5 with New York as if nothing of
consequence happened in Oakland.

But the wild-card game will cost the Rangers the use of Yu Darvish until,
presumably, Game 4 of the Yankees series. That’s if all goes well and Texas
sends Buck Showalter’s team, just as magical as Oakland in its own unpredictable
way, back home in defeat.

Clearly, the highest-scoring team in baseball has an opportunity to respond,
to club its way into the next round even if Darvish is less than sensational
against the Orioles.

Baseball, it is said, has no momentum. The Rangers, who failed in three
straight opportunities to capture the West and avoid this uncertain pressure
under the Friday night lights, will be hard pressed to show they can own these
American League playoffs as they did in 2010 and 2011.

And you wonder what reception Hamilton, their former MVP whose future here
now stands more uncertain than ever, will receive in his first at-bat for what
some will view as a game he made necessary with his outfield gaffe Wednesday
afternoon.

The 162-game season is supposed to answer questions, not raise all sorts of
new ones in the last handful of days. That’s not how it played out for the 2012
Rangers, who look nothing like the team destined for greatness that they
appeared to be back in the glory days of, say, early September.

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About Tim Cowlishaw

Tim Cowlishaw has been The Dallas Morning News' lead sports columnist since July 1998. Prior to that he covered the Cowboys for six seasons and the Stars for three as a beat reporter. He also covered the Rangers as a backup beat writer and was the San Jose Mercury News' beat writer on the San Francisco Giants in the late 1980s.

Tim has been appearing regularly on ESPN"s "Around the Horn" since the show made its debut in November 2002. He also worked with ESPN as part of the network's "NASCAR Now" coverage in 2007-08.

Favorite Dallas restaurants: Park, Nick and Sam's, Kenichi.

Worst sports prediction: His first in college ... that Earl Campbell had no shot at the Heisman Trophy.

Best sports memories: Seeing the Dallas Stars hoist the Stanley Cup long after midnight in Buffalo, watching the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl and Texas win the national title in perfect Rose Bowl settings.